JRN420: Additional image

I decided to do another photo illustration, considering how much fun I had doing the first one. I had a lot of leftover ideas and decided to go with one I had that had to do with branding and its effect on lifestyle.



An anomaly appears on an x-ray of Grand Rapids senior Ben Weissenborn's chest. Many brands, most notably Apple, have a lifestyle attached to them that many consumers accept and adopt at will.

For this image, I first took the photo of my torso in the studio with the lighting setup below. I then found an image of a chest X-ray on Google Images that was not copyright protected. I brought that into Photoshop and selected the portion I wanted to use using the elliptical marquee tool. I then found an image of the Apple logo and brought that into Photoshop. I desaturated it and brightened it up so that it would show up better in the "x-ray." I superimposed the x-ray image on top of the photo of myself, then put the Apple logo on top of that. I turned the opacity of the Apple logo down to zero and erased the portions that appeared over top of the ribs, so that it would look like the logo was behind the ribs. I brought the opacity back up a little bit so that it was still slightly opaque, but more visible. I then flattened the whole image and blurred the logo and around the x-ray so that they would blend better.

Hope you guys enjoy it!

Photo illustrash.

Hey guys! For my photo illustration, I knew I wanted to do something dream related. I initially wanted to do something inspired by the film Inception, but as I began to think about it more, it seemed like it might be a little bit too difficult and hard to read, so I went with something more simple.



Grand Rapids senior, Ben Weissenborn, thinks about his bed while nodding off in class. Many students, especially around finals, don't get much sleep, resulting in fatigue, difficulty concentrating and lowered mood.

To make my illustration, I shot the main, larger photo in the studio. I came home after the studio and shot the "sleeping" photo in my bed. I toned both photos in Photoshop a little bit, then used the circle tool to draw the first 3 bubbles. For the 4th, I used the marquee tool to select part of the sleeping image. I then copy and pasted on top of the other photo. I then went back and used the circle tool to draw a circle that was similar in shape to the part of the sleeping photo that I had selected, then used the free transform tool to give the exact dimensions. I then made it just a little bit bigger so that it would act as a kind of border for the sleeping photo. I blurred the edges of the bubbles, as well as the outside of the sleeping photo and voila!

Here's my lighting setup:



If you want to see some of the other "drafts" I went through, check out my post before this one! Big thanks to Tze Lin, Tanya and Paige for their input.

HELP!

Hey guys. I need some help with my photo illustration. Tell me which one of these you like the most. I think I want to make the photo of me sleeping look more "dreamy" by using some filters in Photoshop, but I don't know which one(s) to use. Suggestions?







Any advice/input you could give me would be awesome!

Still life.

For my still life, I knew I wanted to do something music related. Initially, I just had kind of a mental image of a well lit turntable. As I started to think about it more, I thought about trying to show visually the differences between analog (turntable w/ record) and digital (iPod) forms of music, mostly just by how I would light each.



ISO: 200
Aperture: f/14.0
Shutter speed: 2.5"
Focal length: 300mm

To light the turntable, I put a soft box on one of the strobes and left the modeling light on and used a slow shutter speed.



ISO: 200
Aperture: f/14.0
Shutter speed: 1"
Focal length: 70mm

To light the iPod and headphones, I flashed one of the strobes with a soft box on it placed quite close to the table. I always find that the strobes give kind of a cold, harsh light that I'm not a huge fan of and I decided to use that to my advantage.

Outtakes:

Poverty story.

Painting with light.

Members of Petals Rang The Bell, the Grand Rapids based indie rock band, stand on the shore of Little Pine Island Lake in Comstock Park. From left to right: Andy Howse (bass), Ben Weissenborn (drums), Brandon Grubaugh (guitar) and Shane Tripp (guitar/vocals).
















Self portait of Ben Weissenborn, 22, of Grand Rapids. Weissenborn is a photographer, videographer, music critic, drummer, DJ and film buff.

Outtakes:

JRN420: On-location Lighting